Digital Downloads go mainstream in New Zealand
A well known brand of Cola (or 'fizzy black Satan's worm jism' as the late great Bill Hicks famously dubbed it), has launched an online music store this week in New Zealand with over 500,000 tracks at a lossleading low price. However the launch is great news for digital indies like Amplifier and TMet Recordings which are both chock full of New Zealand Music. Their big marketing spend is going to turn more people on to the idea of buying music legitimately online, which will ultimately benefit indies like ourselves.

Amplifier.co.nz was the Kiwi pioneer, launching an online music store way back in 1999, followed by my dance & electronica label TMet Recordings in 2003. We were joined by Digirama in 2004, who are the ones most likely to having the stuffing knocked out of them by this major player. It has also stolen the thunder of the hotly anticipated though currently unconfirmed launch of a New Zealand iTunes.

Though legal download figures overseas are not encouraging enough to calm the major labels, they are a shot in the arm for indies. In the UK sales in the first 6 months of this year equalled sales from the whole of last year. For a daily lowdown on digital music news I'd heartily recommend subscribing to Paul Resnikoff's brilliant newswire: http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/


P.S. My refusal to name said black worm jism by the way, is down to their dodgy corporate activities overseas, such as in Columbia and India. Why not have a nice cup of Dilmah tea instead?

See also: Digital download providers forced to live on a song, a great article by Peter Novak on the digital download market in New Zealand.